


The Vigilantes (Plural)

by DoesItWeighMoreThanADuck



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29867637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoesItWeighMoreThanADuck/pseuds/DoesItWeighMoreThanADuck
Summary: A canon divergence au for New Kids on the Rock #5: The Vigilante, in which Kevin and Neil's plan to apprehend Ryan goes terribly awry when they accidentally get the wrong guy... (NOTE: This is not a Watchmen fanfiction first and foremost, but NKotR/miscellanious non-LD Neil Cicierega creative works don't have a tag on AO3 and I am absolutely not going to create one for the sake of something like this, and I definitely didn't want to put this in the Lemon Demon tag, and AO3 demands that every work be filed under at least one fandom, so... yeah.)Also, the second and third chapters are two alternate scenarios with different outcomes, because I couldn't decide which ending would be better so I just went with both.





	1. A Costly Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> This is also on Wattpad but I crossposted it here upon request so that someone would be able to access it. So, uh, here you go.

It was a simple plan: Kevin, in disguise, would commit a minor offense to get Ryan's attention, and while Ryan was distracted, Neil would sneak up and knock him out. Indeed, the power of teamwork could do anything!  
Kevin paced briskly up and down the sidewalk, casting furtive glances around to see if his friend, turned ruthless vigilante, was stalking around nearby. It was hard to be sure under all this dark, but he thought he saw movement in a nearby back alley across the road. Kevin took off across the street, purposely ignoring traffic safety protocols.  
Sure enough, as he stepped onto the sidewalk on the other side of the road, a pair of gloved hands shot out from the shadows and grabbed him, yanking him into the alleyway. Even though this was all part of the plan, he couldn't help but wince at the force with which the masked vigilante shoved him against the wall.  
"Jaywalking," a gravely voice snarled. It sent a shiver down Kevin's spine. It almost didn't even sound human... "Minor offense. Everyone does it. Laws broken everyday. Nobody cares."  
"Yeah, well--" Kevin began, but the vigilante cut him off before he could speak.  
"City doesn't give a shit about its laws. Lets small crimes go unchecked. But they pile up. Let too many tiny crumbs pile up, and you're overrun with vermin."  
As he spoke, the vigilante's hands tightened around Kevin's shoulders, squeezing hard enough to make his bones crack. Kevin gritted his teeth and squirmed under the invisible yet piercing gaze of the masked man. This wasn't right. Why wasn't he providing any opportunities for Kevin to reveal his true identity? It had to be the right guy. He and Neil had read all the newspaper descriptions: mask; fedora; pinstriped pants; gravelly voice; extremely violent tendencies; assumed by authorities to be insane. This had to be Ryan. Who else could it be?  
No longer able to bear waiting for the proper dramatic opportunity, Kevin reached up and tugged off his hat and glasses. "Ryan, it's me," he exclaimed. "Can't you see that what you're doing is--"  
A loud crack echoed through the alley as a fist connected with his face, knocking his head to the side. Kevin gasped, tasting blood in his mouth.  
"Is that what they're calling me now? 'Ryan'?" The masked man snorted derisively. "Think it's funny? Big joke?" Another punch, this time to the temple. Stars spun in Kevin's vision. "Those cops can burn in hell. So can you."  
With that, the vigilante drew back his fist one final time. Or, well, it wouldn't actually be the final time... but it was the last one Kevin was awake for. He flinched in anticipation of the--  
_Crunch._  
*  
The sounds of a scuffle from the nearby back alley told Neil that it was his cue. He took out his trusty bottle of chloroform and poured a healthy amount of the liquid over a cloth, then slipped into the alley and made his hasty yet stealthy way toward the source of the noise.  
Sure enough, he made out the silhouetted figure of a man in a fedora standing over another figure who was slumped on the ground. Neil quickened his pace. As he watched, the vigilante started kicking the prone figure. The faint yet distinctive scent of blood mingled with the various other unpleasant city odours in the air. Neil grimaced. _Geez,_ he thought. _I knew he was pretty vicious, but this seems like a lot, even for Ryan..._  
 _..._ And who was that guy on the ground? As Neil drew closer, he realized with a hitching feeling in his gut that it was Kevin. That... that couldn't be right. Why was he just lying there and letting Ryan kick him? That wasn't part of the plan!  
He must have inadvertently whimpered out loud, because the vigilante went as rigid as a deer in headlights, but if the deer was the one barrelling with lethal force towards the truck rather than the other way around. His head snapped up, and although his mask obscured his face, Neil could just tell that he was glaring at him. The masked man planted one last forceful kick to Kevin's ribs, leaving him curled in on himself and moaning in agony, and then bounded across the alley in a few terrifyingly quick strides.  
Neil held up the chloroform-soaked rag, but the vigilante grabbed his wrist and gave it a harsh twist. A crack rang out, and Neil gasped in sudden overwhelming pain. The cloth fell from his hand and landed in a puddle that may have been rainwater, but was much more likely something grosser. Before he could recover, his other arm met the same fate. In a series of harsh and jerky movements, the vigilante wrenched the chloroform bottle from Neil's grip, forced his mouth open--not a lot of work required there, because Neil was already screaming his head off--and poured the bottle's contents down Neil's throat.  
As the world swam and dissolved around him, Neil could have sworn he saw the black-and-white whorl patterns on the vigilante's mask shifting around. Funny... the newspapers hadn't mentioned that about Ryan's crime-fighting outfit. It was only when he was falling to the ground, a split-second before he blacked out, that it dawned on him that this vigilante may not have been Ryan at all.


	2. Outcome 1: Too Late

The streets were quieter than usual that night, which was disconcerting, because a few minutes ago they'd been significantly _noisier_ than usual. Ryan slunk from street to street, intersection to intersection. His surveillance continued to come up empty. Finally, he ducked into a back alley. There was always something shady happening in back alleys; surely there would be someone in there getting up to some kind of crime he could punish.  
However, to his disappointment, this alley appeared just as empty as the streets surrounding it. Ryan scowled, fists clenching tighter at his sides. Now that the urge had awakened, and he knew it was his duty, fighting crime was the only thing he wanted to do. It wasn't that he didn't miss his old life, but it just wasn't something he felt he could go back to, now that he knew his true calling...  
His brooding thoughts were interrupted as he stumbled over something lying in the middle of the alleyway. Ryan looked down, startled, to see a thin figure sprawled unmoving on the ground, facedown in a puddle of some kind of disgusting sludge. Scattered around him were a couple pieces of trash--a rag and an empty plastic bottle. This sight then led his gaze to another figure slumped against the wall nearby, head lolling.  
"Public indecency," Ryan muttered disdainfully. "I've had it with drunks passing out all over the place!"  
He grabbed the unmoving men by their collars and moved to drag them out of the alley. However, before he could get very far, glass crunched under his foot. _And they even left their beer bottle littered on the ground,_ he thought with a scowl. But when he looked down, what he saw shattered beneath his heel wasn't a bottle at all, but rather a pair of glasses. Neil's glasses.  
_What...?_ Head spinning, Ryan turned the man who'd been passed out in the puddle over and used his sleeve to scrub the sludge off his face. Sure enough, it was Neil. His wrists were twisted at a concerning angle, and a bit of liquid dribbled from his lips when Ryan propped him upright against the wall. And the other man... that was Kevin, he realized, although it was much harder to recognize his features--his face had been beaten halfway to a pulp, swollen and crusted with blood. Neither of them stirred when Ryan jostled them. In fact, their bodies seemed just a little _too_ motionless and limp, even for an unconscious person.  
A sharp twinge of anxiety stirred in Ryan's gut. He crouched over his friends, putting a hand on either of their shoulders and shaking them, gently at first, and then more insistently.  
"Guys," he whispered. "What happened? Are you okay?" There was no reply. Ryan tried again to rouse them, still to no avail. "H-hey, guys, come on."  
He realized that he'd slipped out of his deep intimidating vigilante voice, but at this point he was too distraught to bother putting it on. His natural voice trembled as it rose in pitch and volume along with his increasing urgency.  
"Is this all to teach me a lesson? I--I understand now," he gasped as a sudden epiphany washed over him with a force that sent tears springing up in his eyes. "I've been a fool. I would rather be your friend than fight crime. Neil, Kevin, I'm sorry, I'll... I'll stop, if that's what you want, just... just stop fooling around and get up, okay?"  
To prove he really meant it, he tore his mask off and tossed it aside, where it skittered along the damp and grody pavement to rest near several other pieces of trash. But even then, his friends didn't respond. Heart clenching, Ryan looked them over again. Aside from his visibly mangled face, Kevin's clothes were tattered and matted with blood, suggesting even worse injuries to the rest of his body. And Neil, aside from his obviously broken arms... just how long had he been lying there, face fully submerged in that puddle?  
"Guys--" Ryan's voice cracked like the wall of a crumbling dam, and tears began to flow from his eyes. "Come on. We still need to make a webisode this week, remember? You can't--you can't make me do all the work myself!"  
No response. Of course there was no response. They weren't even breathing, their hearts weren't even beating, so how could they be expected to move other than to limply flop over onto the ground when Ryan took his hands off their shoulders?  
With no more foolish hope left within him, Ryan simply sobbed and threw himself over his friends' bodies. They were already so cold to the touch. He wondered, bitterly, how he ever mistook them for merely being asleep. They must have already been dead for at least a good five minutes before he found them.  
As a freezing wind swept through the alleyway, a slight movement in the periphery of Ryan's vision caught his attention. He raised his head to see a scrap of ink-stained paper fluttering in the breeze. Grief momentarily interrupted by curiosity, he grabbed the paper and unfolded it. As he beheld the amorphous black blot smudged across the white paper, a chill ran down his spine. He recognized this calling card.  
"Of course," he whispered. "Rorschach."  
His fellow vigilante. Truth be told, Ryan had admired him once. Back then, he didn't know anything about what lay behind that whorl-patterned mask. He only knew that Rorschach stuck to his convictions no matter what, and would go to all and any lengths to fend off crime in the city. That seemed admirable, in theory.  
Well, if he hadn't known better than to admire Rorschach before, he knew now. Ryan drew in a sharp breath and clenched his trembling hand into a fist, crumpling the ink blot calling card. With his other hand, he grabbed his discarded mask off the ground. He realized now that he would, and maybe should, have given up the crime-fighting lifestyle to return to his ordinary life making webisodes with Neil and Kevin. But he couldn't go back to that life anymore. Shakily, he stood up and dusted himself off. His friends' bodies still lay at his feet, the smell of their blood mingling with a strange chemical odour and the general stench of this shady corner of the city.  
"I'm sorry," he whispered through gritted teeth as a stinging tear rolled down his cheek. "There's one more crime I need to fight. But I'll be joining you soon."  
Ryan wasn't an idiot. He knew that Rorschach had been in the vigilante business for a whole lot longer and was a far more experienced fighter. He also knew, now all too well, that Rorschach showed no mercy to his adversaries. If Ryan challenged him to a fight, it would be the last mistake he ever made. But the alternative--doing nothing, letting Rorschach get away with murdering his friends--was worse.  
He straightened his hat, slipped his mask back on, and turned away. The vigilante he had become would fight and die later that night. But Ryan, for all intents and purposes, was already every bit as dead as his fallen friends. It was only a matter of time now until his body caught up with his spirit.


	3. Outcome 2: Four-Way Struggle

The skinny kid with the glasses was facedown in a puddle of filth, passed out. Would be dead soon, if he wasn't already. The other one--the one who had called Rorschach "Ryan" and looked so strangely betrayed upon getting punched--was proving more resilient. He wasn't getting up, but no matter how many times Rorschach kicked him, he just kept writhing and groaning. A growl rose in Rorschach's throat as he slammed his boot into the kid's head again. However long it took, he _would_ make sure they were dead. Didn't want anyone snitching on him. And he hated being called by the wrong name.  
The sound of approaching footsteps and a horrified gasp from nearby caught Rorschach's attention. He turned, readying himself to fight yet another opponent, but the mouth of the alley was empty when he looked. The scuffing sound of hastily retreating footsteps gave it away: someone had seen him, and was now running away. Rorschach grunted, annoyed. _Kill these ones first,_ he decided. _Go after the coward later._ He turned back to the young man with the dark hair and drew his foot back to kick him again.  
Before he could land his next kick, something dropped on him from above. Rorschach, caught off guard and unable to defend himself in time, fell facefirst beneath the weight of his new attacker. He hit the ground in an impact that knocked the wind out of him and left him momentarily stunned.  
In the few seconds it took Rorschach to catch his breath, his attacker scrambled over to the man with the glasses and shook him. "Neil?" Upon being met with no response, he pulled the man out of the puddle and smacked him on the back. The man coughed and sputtered without properly regaining consciousness.  
Snarling, Rorschach grabbed his attacker by the ankle. Looking this person up and down, his scowl only deepened. Another mask. And not just any, but the new mask the newspapers had been talking about. An imitator. Copying Rorschach's style, but beating his victims to within an inch of their lives rather than finishing them off. A coward. Probably a liberal. Detestable vermin, no different from the punks Rorschach had been in the middle of killing before this rude interruption.  
He lunged toward the other masked man, who flinched and raised his arms in a defensive position. Rorschach tackled him to the ground. As he was scanning the trash-littered alleyway for any sharp or blunt objects he could use as a makeshift murder weapon, his opponent kneed him in the gut. This time, rather than using Rorschach's momentary incapacitation to waste time trying to rouse the other young men who were already half dead, the imitator vigilante took the opportunity to slam Rorschach against the wall. The impact was rough, but his aim was weak. _Amateur._  
Recovering quickly, Rorschach grabbed his opponent by the collar and slammed him headfirst against the bricks in retaliation. He then repeated this gesture until he heard a loud enough crack. With a grunt of self-satisfaction, he dropped his would-be rival and let him slide down the wall, leaving a smear of blood on the bricks, to flop on the ground next to the others.  
Just then, the rapidly approaching wail of police sirens split the air. Rorschach stiffened in alarm, then hissed in annoyance as he realized he was unarmed. Not equipped to fight cops right now. _No matter,_ he told himself. _These bastards_ _nearly dead already. Won't survive._ He took off running down the alley away from the sirens...  
...But he only got about three steps away before something grabbed hold of his ankle and sent him crashing to the ground.  
Rorschach didn't get to see which of the damned kids had managed to trip him. Before he could push himself up, a weight pressed down on his back. Then something clamped over his face as if to smother him. He instinctively gasped for breath, and only realized his mistake once the sharp chemical smell hit his nostrils. By then the chloroform was already doing its work. With a low groan of rage, he passed out, the world dissolving into darkness around him.  
*  
Neil waited until the man with the whorl-patterned mask had gone sufficiently limp before retracting the chloroform-soaked cloth. His own head still swam from being forced to chug the substance; he could barely see two feet ahead of him, and he was pretty sure he was going to be violently ill soon. Wavering on the verge of unconscious at least came with one perk: he could barely feel the excruciating pain of his broken arms. If it weren't for that small mercy, he didn't think he could have managed to press the cloth over their attacker's face hard or long enough to knock him out.  
This narcotic-induced numbness wasn't a luxury shared by Kevin, who could feel every bit of the agony wracking practically every synapse of his body. It had taken everything in his power to grab the weird ink pattern guy by the ankle and then crawl on top of him to pin him down. Now that their opponent was down and out, Kevin wasn't sure how long he could keep from following suit and blacking out again. But at least it was over. _Good job, Neil_. His ribs and jaw hurt too much for him to speak, and his mouth was too full with his own blood to get any words out anyway, but he gave Neil an attempt at a smile, which Neil weakly returned.  
Slumped against the wall, hair matted with his own blood, Ryan watched the blurry movements in front of him. He couldn't tell what was going on--somehow, he couldn't get his senses to focus. A pained groan escaped his lips, accompanied by a trickle of blood. Were his friends alright? Was _he_ alright? He couldn't tell. He hoped they were.  
Peering into that alleyway expecting to see some typical gang violence he had to break up only to see Neil and Kevin getting attacked by Rorschach, the vigilante who Ryan had once viewed as a role model, had taught him a lesson. He understood now that he was wrong to let crime-fighting take over his life. Friendship should have been more important. All he wanted to do now was go back to how things were before.  
"Let's go home together," he tried to say, but all that came out was a low gurgle and more blood.  
Hearing Ryan try to speak, Neil groggily raised his head. Kevin tried to do the same, but was hit with another sharp burst of pain in his ribs and fell back to the ground.  
"I couldn't have done it without my chloroform," Neil announced in a slurred voice. He wasn't sure exactly who he was addressing or why. Neither of the others responded.  
No sooner had the words stumbled out of his mouth than a good quantity of the substance in question forced its way back up through his system. After vomiting up a pile of chloroform mixed with bits of sludge from the puddle he'd nearly drowned in, he found that his energy was completely drained. His body wouldn't even cooperate enough to hold his head off the filthy ground. He slumped against the ground, where his senses continued to blur until everything gave way to endless black.  
Next to him, Kevin tried again to speak. He could hear the police sirens, still growing closer; the noise rang in his ears loud enough to almost distract him from the pain now. Almost. He wanted to warn the others not to fall asleep. They had to get out of there, before the police showed up. But Kevin couldn't move, and when he opened his mouth, he just ended up coughing up blood. It looked like Neil was already passed out again, and Ryan... also asleep? Or something like that. Kevin was getting pretty tired himself. With a groan of pained resignation, he gave up his slipping hold on consciousness and let himself sink into the beckoning darkness.  
The fedora lay upside-down next to Ryan, knocked off his head from getting thrown into the wall, but the mask remained on his face even as his perception faded into oblivion. But that didn't matter. Mask still physically on his face or not, he'd learned his lesson. _We'll go home,_ he thought, _and_ _we'll go back to making webisodes like nothing ever happened._ That thought brought a smile to his bloodstained lips. Yes, it wasn't over for the three of them.  
Wasn't over...  
Not yet.  
They'd stay... together...  
....


End file.
